Seeman v. United States, 8329.
| Decision Date | 26 May 1937 |
| Docket Number | No. 8329.,8329. |
| Citation | 90 F.2d 88 |
| Parties | SEEMAN v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
H. E. Kahn, of Houston, Tex., and Ellis C. Irwin and David Gertler, both of New Orleans, La., for appellant.
Douglas W. McGregor, U. S. Atty., and George P. Red, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Houston, Tex., for the United States.
Before FOSTER, SIBLEY, and HUTCHESON, Circuit Judges.
Appellant, Jerihem Seeman, was convicted on two counts of an indictment, numbers 1 and 4. Count No. 1 charged a conspiracy between appellant and Irwin Kott, Joseph Lee O'Neal, Edward Fein, and a number of other named persons, to defraud Lester Carter & Co., of Chicago, and other persons, by selling to them forged bonds purporting to be the genuine bonds of Eastern Shore Public Service Company, to be transported in interstate commerce, in violation of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S. C.A. §§ 77a-77aa. Count 4 charged appellant and other persons named in the conspiracy with the substantive offense of shipping the forged bonds in interstate commerce by express from New York City to Houston, Tex., with intent to defraud the purchaser of said bonds, and was substantially the same as one of the overt acts alleged in count No. 1.
A motion was filed on behalf of the United States to dismiss the appeal. As to this, it is sufficient to say that the grounds urged are technical, unsubstantial, and not jurisdictional. The motion is overruled.
Error is assigned to the denial of a motion for a directed verdict and to the admission in evidence of statements by Kott, charged as a co-conspirator, made to a government agent. We may consider these assignments together.
Appellant contends that the Securities Act of 1933 does not apply to the shipment in interstate commerce of forged bonds, but is intended to prohibit only the sale of genuine securities by fraudulent means. The Securities Act of 1933 (Act of May 27, 1933) is designed to regulate the sale of securities moving in interstate commerce and covers many subjects. It is not necessary to extensively review it. Title 1, § 17 of the act (15 U.S.C.A. § 77q), so far as material, provides as follows:
It is difficult to imagine any transaction that would be better calculated to deceive and defraud a purchaser than to sell and ship him forged imitations of genuine bonds. The act is broad enough to cover the transaction charged as a crime in the indictment. The contention is wholly untenable.
However, an entirely different question is presented by the evidence. The record contains evidence tending to show the following facts:
On April 9, 1936, Kott, using the name of J. Ross, sent a telegraphic order for $700, addressed to appellant, Seeman, in the name of J. Courtney, at New York City. The message accompanying the money order was as follows, "Kept fifty pay my bill — I expect copies of number twenty lease here Saturday ship immediately." Appellant received the telegram and cashed the money order. The next day, April 10, 1936, Fein shipped five forgeries of the twenty-year gold bonds of the Eastern Shore Public Service Company, face value of $1,000 each, by air express, from New York City to Houston, Tex. The bonds were received by O'Neal in Houston the next day, which was Saturday. O'Neal and Kott negotiated their sale through Guaranty Securities Corporation, a firm of brokers in Houston, an innocent agent, ostensibly for the account of Sam Kaplan, a nonexistent person, to Lester Carter & Company, another firm of brokers in Chicago, to whom they were shipped in interstate commerce, with a draft attached in the sum of $5,157.50. Lester Carter & Co. delivered the bonds to their customer and remitted the proceeds to the Guaranty Securities Corporation, who in turn drew its check to the order of Sam Kaplan, on April 16, 1936, but it was not delivered, as Kott and O'Neal were arrested that morning by government agents.
Over objection of appellants, the government introduced the evidence of T. H. Sisk, an agent of the Department of Justice, who testified, in substance, that he arrested Kott and O'Neal in Kott's room in the Rice Hotel, in Houston, on April 16, 1936, where Kott was registered as Joseph Ross; that the room was searched and he found a number of documents, which he described, and a receipt for the money sent to appellant by...
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